With the advent of K47 I’m in a different position to Shipman and James.   They both have assembled armies that are largely unpainted and are at best base coated.    This gives them a good base to start from but a blank canvas.   I (as shown in my last post) have a largely painted winter themed Soviet Army force.   This puts me at an advantage in that I have lots of stuff painted already and the other 2 adult slackers in the team need to get their backsides in gear so we have some “hobby” content.

Stefan (my son) also has the start of a nicely painted British Army, some of which was painted by the chap that we bought it from, some of it painted by himself.    I’m going to ask him to do a post about his Universal Carrier soon whilst we wait for new British and lend-lease Walkers for him to paint!

So, whilst in some respects, Stefan and I are ahead of the game, our options or choices for where we go from here really are restricted by the theme we’ve chosen for our Bolt Action Armies.    I’m not allowing myself a side project until after I’ve painted the figures that I’ve got for my current army.

Luckily, I’m very excited by the new infantry options in the Soviet force.    The walkers look interesting but I’m more of a tank fan and I’d rather field an IS3 at some point in the future than a mammoth.    Having said that, the points cost (600 points for a regular tank) of the IS3 is currently extortionate and I can see that representing a stumbling block!   This is especially the case when compared to other options that the germans and allies get for anti tank options with decent armour / manoeuvrability

Enough complaining about what the other boys get to play with!   Of all of the rift tech units in the game, the daughers of the motherland were the pick for me.   There are many stories of inspirational women in the Soviet army during World War 2, few are as jaw dropping as that of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the Ukranian Soviet Sniper who is credited with 309 kills during the war.   I’m thinking of having an “experiemental” force which can supplement my already painted Infantry and allow me to model a force including Lyudmilla herself along with her “daughters” to protect the borders of the motherland.   With her of course will also be some criminals (Shaftenbat) and maybe some beasts of burden to do the heavy lifting (Ursine Warriors).   I’m thinking almost a broken out of the gulag kind of vibe (although now I’ve said that, I’m remembering the recent muppets movie and the song in the prison!!)

There are some excellent models available to help show my Lyudmilla available at a scale that fits in well with Warlord’s figures so I’m good to go.

I can see my initial list having a couple of squads of guards, an LT, free squad of rifles, sniper rifle and squad of daughters.    We’ll then see what we have left to spend on either some Ursine Wariors or a Siberian Terror Squad.

From a theme point of view, a list made up of two penal squads, an LT (Jailer) along with his inexperienced rifle squad and commisar with Lyudmilla and her daughters would leave plenty of points to spend !  I’m concerned however that 500 or 750 points this wouldn’t be fun to play against and at that point I’d rather have something a little more mainstream!

An example of how it could look can be seen here;

Commissar

Officer: SMG;

2nd Lieutenant (Regular)

• 2 Infantry: regular; SMG

11 Shtrafbat Squad: inexperienced shirkers; 11× rifle

11 Shtrafbat Squad: inexperienced shirkers; 11× rifle

Free Rifle Squad, 11 Rifles: anti-tank grenades

3 Ursus Infantry

6 Daughters Of The Motherland: 2× Captured Panzerfaust; anti-tank grenades; SN-42 body armour

Lyudmilla and her spotter (Sniper Team: veteran)

Whilst that’s very themey, I’ve no idea how it would actually work.   I could see it simply overwhelming an enemy at 500 points with sheer weight of numbers, equally I could see the Daughters and Ursus being annhilated and the rest of the list simply unable to do anything.